This week’s photographs shines a light on Sister Ruth, a local character who is a beautiful human being with a truly unique style. You will always see her pushing her trolley around stuffed with a variety of random objects. She is always up for a lil chat and she will often give you a blessing.
She told me was a missionary nun for most of her life and went to war torn & troubled countries to help those in need. She said she had seen lots of atrocities but the worst she ever saw was Grenfell. Through the positive joy she exudes you can still see the sadness trickling through which she seems to dampen down with lil swigs of Vodka.
I saw her the other day and I called her by name and she said how did I know who she was? I explained we had spoken on many occasions and she said..did I flirt with you? She then said she would pray for us and asked us what we wished for. She is getting on a bit now to say the least and old age seems to be digging its claws in but she still has a lot of fight in her. I also pray she sticks around for a while longer because she is a little ray of light and one of the last great characters in this neighbourhood. Bless you Sister Ruth..
..and that was going to be my puff piece on Sister Ruth and as I am now an investigative journalist (self-appointed) I thought I would do a search for her this morning and see if anything came up and was shocked to find a story about her across a multitude of newspaper publications in 2012 detailing a case that was brought against her for sending threatening letters to Nick Clegg and other MPs and a couple of baronesses containing a substance that looked (but wasn’t) anthrax.
Sister Ruth aka Ruth Augustus was arrested and told police: “I’m Sister Ruth, a 71-year-old disabled nun. I look like a terrorist, don’t I, working for a charity all over the world, with orphans?” Which is a fair point. And she also said “Of Mr Clegg, he lied about all the tuition fees and everything else, keeping those Tory millionaires and rats in government”. Which is also a very fair point. And she said of the police: “They opened the envelopes, and put white powder in, to frame me. I know they monitor it all.” And to be fair that does kinda sound like the sort of thing they do.
But apparently the catholic church have no record of her and she is in fact suffering from a delusional disorder. She was sentenced to 2 years community service. At first I wished I hadn’t looked her up and had preferred to preserve my version of Sister Ruth but at the same time it just makes me even more fascinated with her story. Has my opinion changed of her? Not at all, I still think she’s a beacon of joy. Will I mention it when I next see her? Probably not…but mebbe I could drop Nick Clegg into the conversation and see what happened..any suggestions on how?